


Explosions have a way of revealing one's priorities

by Alison_Ocean



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fanfic, Gen, Kastle drabble, One Shot, Short One Shot, The Punisher drabble, frank x karen, kastle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 20:16:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12689481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alison_Ocean/pseuds/Alison_Ocean
Summary: "Where does that end?", she’d asked.  Where the hell did she think?A short one-shot featuring Frank's thoughts.





	Explosions have a way of revealing one's priorities

_“So where does that end, Frank?”_

Such a shit question, he’d thought long after she’d asked it. And she wasn’t the first, either. It was a question that flared up in his life every day, sometimes every waking moment. He’d hear it whispering from the drain grates and chewing in the mouths of junkies he passed in the alleyways. The clouds would open and the pavement would bleed wet and sulfuric, dissolving the words into dark puddles that would catch in the corners of his vision. It was a question that had passed not just Karen Page’s soft lips, but the cracked and bloodied ones of countless shitbags he’d ended. _Where does this end, Frank?_ He resented the question, from a place deep inside, just above the yawning pit in his gut that knew for certain that he had no good answer to it. To be honest, he had too many answers. And none of them satisfying to whoever was asking.

 _Where does that end_? she’d asked.  Where the hell did she think? It ended when every piece of shit gangbanger, exploiter, murderer, rapist, was dead and buried with concrete poured on top. It ended when someone finally got a clear shot and put a hole in the other side of his skull. A matching pair, maybe that’s all he needed. It ended when God stopped twisting good men’s necks until they snapped; growing malice faster than mold in the cavities of even the most hallowed grounds. And all of that, he knew, was just smoke in the dark. The real shit, plain and simple, was that it didn’t end. Not ever. There was no limit that he could reach. There was no amount of blood that could drown him. Fact was, he’d learned to live without breathing a long time ago.

But.

But right now, shoulder stinging on the cold tile. Right now, flecks of glass mixing with dust, making the air sharp and dim. Right now, heart pounding harder in his head than it has in months; he can feel his eye sockets ringing. Right now, hearing silence where he shouldn’t from the body lying next to him. Right this very second, waiting for Karen Page to breathe, he’s not so sure that he has no limits. He’s not so sure that nothing could drown him.

 _Where does that end, Frank?_ She’d asked. It was a knee-jerk reaction that he’d only factored his own death into her equation. Entire cities stood shakily on the shoulders of people like Karen Page; her species was necessary, he knew that in his bones. It had been instinctive, leaving her out of his hedonistic calculus. The fine lines that he walked had been drawn in ink, and each one gave decency an uncompromisingly wide berth. He had no fight with decency.

He hadn’t anticipated this quick, wicked taste of reality. As easy as falling off a cliff – one step and he was plummeting. Lying on that goddamn brown tile with a sledgehammer in his head, and her lying so still beside him, he can fully appreciate the one thing that could stop him. The one thing that would absolutely end _that_.

The knowledge slithers down his sternum, slick and hot like liquor, pooling into an incalculable wave of self-contempt.

 _Please don’t make me stop, Karen._ He wants to beg her, but he knows the words would never get past a closed throat. _Please don’t make me stop._

She comes alive in slow motion, sucking in a breath, turning inch by inch to face him. As he reaches to cradle the base of her skull, his fingers comb her scalp for blood and he silently asks her to look at him. He asks her to be absolutely fine; hardly a scratch on her, no bruises that won’t fade. He asks this, because he knows he would have to stop if he lost her. It’s only because of people like her that he has any real justification for what he does. One can’t exist without the other. And he needs this. He needs to be the Punisher – to feel the blood of the depraved cooling on his hands every night; to feel the pulse of evil itself stutter and stop beneath the fists he makes around its throat. He needs this life more than he needs anything – more, even, than he needs her inexplicable presence in it.

_Please don’t make me stop, Karen._

And she doesn’t.

One of these days, he knows, he’ll have to thank her for that. 


End file.
